Cutter #2

GUT SHOT

as by Duff McCoy

Pinnacle, October 1990

Simon Crow and his desert scum bust into a small trail store hungry for blood. The old storekeeper and his wife were helpless against them. A lone drifter witnessed the killings at gunpoint, taking a headshot that left him unconscious while Crow picked his pockets and left him to rot. But hate burned too deep in Jeb Cutter to let him die. Now he’ll track each man like an animal and butcher the outlaws in a mad-dog killing spree that’ll take him clear across Kansas in a trail of hot gore and sweet revenge!

This series is supposed to be written in the tradition of Edge, and the violence does at time mirror that series, but what it lacks is a main hero I cared about, didn’t care whether he was successful in his quest or died in the attempt.

The book was easy enough to read, didn’t have a complicated plot or many twists to the tale. At times I wonderd if McCoy (Charley W. Perlberg) forgot the type of western he was writing, as one minute Cutter was calling the men he trailed “bastards” and then in the next sentence “jaspers” which came across as him being a pulp western hero from the 1940/50’s instead of the brutal hero based on spaghetti western anti-heroes, this, at times, made Cutter seem like two different characters.

Having said that, if you want a fast, violent, read that’s not going to tax the brain too much, then this book could be the escapism you need.